Design and implementation of intelligent field monitoring and irrigation system for Radix Ophiopogonis

Abstract

Sichuan province is one of main producing areas of Radix Ophiopogonis which is a valuable herb in Chinese traditional medicine. It is important to monitor the field’s environment parameters during the growing period and maintain the soil moisture value to ensure both the quality and yield of Radix Ophiopogonis. This paper designs and implements the intelligent monitoring wireless network and automatic irrigation system for Radix Ophiopogonis. Our system includes hardware modularity, which separates PSU (Power Supply Unit) from sensor nodes, monitoring network with diversifying field environmental data, and irrigation expert model for Radix Ophiopogonis. Combined with weather data, such as temperature, humidity, and rainfall data from meteorological observatory, environmental data (such as soil humidity and surface temperature) gathered from our network are served as input of the irrigation expert model to make decision, then the result is fed back to SV Node (Solenoid Valve Node) to form a closed loop, which reaches the goal of field monitoring and irrigation control. The result shows that our system can provide moisture accurately for Radix Ophiopogonis, thus realize automatic, realtime and appropriate amount of irrigation. Our system also provides high control accuracy, reliable communication, and is especially suitable for medium-large-size farmland of Medicinal herbs.